


A Lever and a Place to Stand

by MarbleGlove



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleGlove/pseuds/MarbleGlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn’t use his magic… except this once: Sherlock will live!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John: Sherlock Lives!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my sister for beta reading this! All mistakes remain my own.

John didn’t use his magic.

Sherlock didn't have magic, which was one of the things that made his skills of deduction so incredibly amazing. He did something that no one else did, and he did it with the just the same abilities that everyone else had. It was amazing.

In contrast, John’s magic was generally useless and he tried his best to avoid using it. As a rule, magicians routinely used magic whenever it would be of use. Most magicians tailored their whole lives around whatever particular magic skill they were born with.

But John didn’t use his magic at all.

“It’s ludicrous,” Sherlock had said. “You have the magic, and whatever skill it gives you, so why not use it?”

John had opened his mouth to say something or another, but Sherlock had cut him off.

“No, no, don’t tell me. This is too interesting for spoilers. Some people don’t appreciate the power imbalance that magic skills give, but you’re a doctor and a soldier: you aren’t scared of having power over other people. And not using it is like voluntary amputation. And despite that psychosomatic limp, you don’t want part of yourself to be gone.”

“That is a terrible metaphor,” John had interrupted. He was happy to let Sherlock toy with various theories, but there were still lines. Anyway, it wasn’t like voluntary amputation at all, since refraining from using his magic wasn’t the same as getting rid of it, more’s the pity. It was more like keeping his gun in a locked drawer: he still had it, he was just choosing not to use it.

Sherlock ignored him. “The average person uses their magic three times a day, counting intentional use when it comes to steady-state powers such as superior strength or knowledge. It’s only the people with rarer and more powerful magics who refrain from flaunting their abilities,” Sherlock mused. And then suddenly, “You’re a miracle worker!”

“Hmm?” John said. He had put down his book to watch Sherlock as he declared his deductive process. John loved watching Sherlock deduct. It was always so fascinating.

“More powerful magicians tend not to advertise their abilities as much, but are more effected by it. The more powerful the magic, the more likely the person is to form their life around the ability.

“You’re a doctor and a soldier. Similarities: Having power of life and death. That falls within the miracle worker range of magic. Can you raise the dead?”

John blinked a few times at the abrupt question. But then, “You are absolutely amazing. But statistical analysis of negative results is not particularly reliable. And no. I can’t raise the dead.”

“But you are a miracle worker, right?” It was the highest known level of magic. Miracle workers performed miracles: created events that contradicted the laws of nature and affected people other than the magician using the magic. Most magic abilities only affected the possessor. Miracle workers could change the people around them.

“No, I’m not a miracle worker,” John said. “And you are just guessing.”

“Hmph. It wasn’t guessing,” Sherlock insisted rather sulkily. “It was testing a hypothesis.”

“Ah, guessing and hoping I’d confirm it?” John shook his head in mock sympathy. “Still guessing.”

“Oh, piss of.” But Sherlock was grinning as he said it. “So, what is your ability?”

“What happened to no spoilers?” John said, mostly to give himself time to consider how he wanted to answer. Party just to annoy Sherlock, though.

“If you never use it, then there’s no way to deduct what it is. You’re obviously a magician, but what’s the power do?”

“Since I don’t use it, it doesn’t do anything much at all.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Of course you’ve used it. Children with magic talents will automatically use them. Knowledge of how the magic works is inherent in the ability itself.”

“I didn’t say I’ve never used it, I said that I don’t use it. I used it as a kid, I decided magic wasn’t for me, and I don’t anymore.”

“That’s just… no one does that! Do you understand? No one! No one just decides not to use their magic!”

“Except me.”

“Except you! Why?”

John had returned to reading his book. Sherlock continued to stare intently at him, but he was largely used to that.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“In fact, you’ve never told anyone. That's one of the reasons why your relationship with your sister is so fraught. She can tell when people are lying to her. It's helped her be extremely successful as a lawyer and extremely unsuccessful in any personal relationship. Did you lie to her about your magic?"

"Of course not. No point."

"Hmm. Just didn’t tell her anything. Like you’re not telling me. I'll find out eventually."

"I doubt it."

John occasionally saw Sherlock stare at him consideringly after that, especially when magic came up, but Sherlock hadn’t guessed or deduced the truth before he jumped from that roof.

After all, John thought, it wasn't really something that could be deduced. He never used his magic and even when he did, it didn’t do anything measurable.

He wasn’t a miracle worker, because his magic didn’t make exceptions to the laws of nature. He couldn’t change anything that had happened or fix anything that was broken.

His magic worked entirely within the shadow of a doubt: He never knew, could never know, what had changed. Because nothing was changed, or maybe everything was changed.

He had tried using it as a child and it just made him nervous.

As an adult, he only used it once: when Sherlock threw himself off a building and was pronounced dead at the bottom of it.

It had taken several days of careful thought to decide that maybe there was a shadow of doubt somewhere in this whole mess, someplace for his magic to gain purchase. He was probably crazy, but he had to try. 

John knew he had seen Sherlock jump, but then he had tripped. He had seen the bloody body dead on the ground. But there had been a moment in between... John had tripped, there was a bike and a truck, there had been a moment of distraction, a moment outside of his immediate sight and knowledge. A moment where maybe his magic could slip in and remake the world around him. As long as he gave it free rein and didn't worry about the repercussions. 

Because that was what kept him from using the magic intentionally before: the side effects that by the very nature of his magic he could never know or judge. The world would change around him, the future certainly but also the present and the past, in order to change to his will. Nothing he personally experienced would change, he would only see what had happened beyond his sight by happenstance after the fact, and he'd never know if it had always been so or only became so due to the magic. 

He stood at Sherlock's headstone and decided after so many days that he didn't care. 

"There’s just one more thing, one more thing,” John was practically stuttering, forcing himself beyond a point he’d promised himself never to pass. “One more miracle, Sherlock, for me.” He had to do this. He just had to. And damned be the consequences. “Don’t… be… dead."

And the magic reached out and changed the world.

He felt it change and shift and morph around him. 

And he was still there, still standing on his friend's grave, still going back to an empty apartment, still stressed from so many months dealing with paparazzi stalkings. Nothing had changed or would change about his personal experience.

But he knew that somewhere out there Sherlock lived. Had always lived.

Somewhere out there was a Sherlock who had decided that rather than commit suicide, he had to fake committing suicide. Please god, let the faked death have been by Sherlock’s will and not Moriarty hiding Sherlock’s kidnapping. Either way, Moriarty's network had probably become more powerful than it might have been otherwise, in order to make that decision necessary. Mycroft was probably more powerful and more subtle than he might otherwise have been in order to help fake his brother's death. Who knew how many people were dead or never born who might otherwise have lived, none of whom John knew anything about, in order for the world to be a place where Sherlock survived. Maybe this made the world a better place, maybe a more terrible one. The world was likely more rife with conspiracies than it would otherwise have been. 

It didn't matter. It couldn’t matter.

The world didn’t change and leave people in awe of the miracles that had happened: the world always was the way it was. It could never be compared to what it might otherwise have been because there was no one to see and judge between two possibilities.

This was the real reason why John didn’t use the magic he had: because it didn’t change anything. All it did was foster guilt for all the things he could never know.

And yet, he had used it now. And it was worth it. Because he lived in a world in which Sherlock survived. 

It changed nothing and yet it changed everything. 

And that was why John never used his magic. 

And why he used it this once. 

Because Sherlock lived!


	2. Mycroft: Looking at the Face of God

Mycroft had only a very minor magic ability allowing him to know things that he might not otherwise have been able to know. He had found it ludicrous, but not un-useful, that the government prized the powerful magics of miracle workers above the more minor magic that Mycroft could use to devastating effect. He found it maddening and utterly useless that the government discounted his brother’s abilities entirely since they were not founded on magic at all.

Mycroft’s magic, minor thought it was, allowed him entrance into government service. The government’s foolish dependence on magic was what motivated him to do so.

Once in service, he had a place to stand, and his knowledge—gained through observation, deduction, and magic—gave him a lever by which to change the government and the world around it. His peers, such as they were, now looked at Mycroft with respect bordering on fear. The fact that they couldn’t see beyond their own noses and extend that same respect to his brother made him think all the less of them. He was like a disinterested god to them, and they like goldfish to him.

Then Captain Dr. John Watson had come along and looked at Sherlock with the amazement usually reserved for miracle workers, looked at Mycroft like he was nothing to fear, and had a magic ability that Mycroft did not understand.

Officially, Dr. Watson had a minor magical ability of good luck.

Unofficially, Mycroft’s own magic ability had told him that John Watson was a still point in a changeable world. He’d just had to look the man in the face to know. For one of the first times, however, that knowledge had not come with understanding.

It was extremely frustrating.

And possibly explained why Sherlock was so enamored with the good doctor.

It was something that both he and Sherlock had tried and failed to deduce. Between the two of them, they should have been able to discover all of Watson's secrets. And they had been able to know everything else about the man with all his feelings and intentions. And yet, the mystery of his magic remained unknown. It was irritating.

Even after Sherlock's suicide pact with Moriarty, Mycroft kept an eye on Watson. In part to honor his brother's wishes, but mostly to try to divine that one remaining mystery. 

It wasn't until a week after Sherlock's funeral that Mycroft finally got the clue he needed. 

Watson was at the grave again and Mycroft watched and listened through a hidden webcam he'd had set up. 

"I don't know why you did what you did. And I find I was sufficiently shocked by the events that even my memory is disjointed and confused. And lord knows I never really understood you. Loved you, but never understood you. And remain in complete awe of your abilities. You are amazing. It always seemed like you were capable of anything and everything. So I hope that you fooled me one more time.…

“You... you told me once that you weren't a hero. Umm, there were times I didn't even think you were human, but let me tell you this: you were the best man, an' the most human... human being that I've ever known, and no-one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. That's so. There. I was so alone, and I owe you so much, but, please, there's just one more thing, one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't... be... dead. Would you, just for me, just stop it? Stop this.”

After stuttering to an end, Dr. Watson finally relaxed, his words said. He now stood silent for a long moment. Looking at him, Mycroft recalled the meditative trance some high-level magic users needed in order to allow instinctive magic to happen after a lifetime of learning to suppress it. 

Mycroft wondered how Watson would take it when Sherlock really did come back after finally taking down Moriarty’s network, and demonstrated that for all his lack of magic, he could perform that miracle that Watson wanted. 

And then he considered Watson's words and felt his own blood freeze. 

When he had first met Dr. Watson in person, his magic had told him that the good doctor was a still point in a changeable world. And Mycroft hadn’t understood what his own magic was telling him.

Now he understood.

Archimedes had once said, “Dos moi pa sto, kai tan gan kinaso.” “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.”

Mycroft had helped Sherlock fake his death and continued to help him run around Europe. 

It had already happened, but it was nothing that Watson could have known about. And wasn't that the point? Didn't Mycroft's own magic tell him that Watson was a still point? And Watson's own words had implied the same. 

Dr. Watson wasn't a miracle worker that made specific exceptions to the laws of man and nature. No, Mycroft though. Watson changed reality—future, present, and past—to meet his demands. Shifting the whole world around him, but only in the invisible parts beyond his own ken. 

It was impossible power. It was god-like power.

Mycroft had his phone in his hand to order Watson killed within the hour, but then paused.

It would be easy enough to do.

Probably.

He was almost positive there would be no fallout from killing a person with Dr. Watson’s ability. It wasn’t a self-defense power.

And yet, almost positive wasn’t the same as entirely positive.

And then he thought about what the world would have been like without Dr. Watson, what the world would be like if Sherlock really had died by throwing himself off the building. Of course Sherlock hadn’t committed suicide. But what about the world had made it so?

Sherlock was entirely unique, and as much a joy as a worry to Mycroft. Another word for ‘unique’ in this world’s population is ‘improbable’.

How improbable that a person such as Sherlock could exist: without magic and yet so extremely capable. Someone who could love and be loved by Watson. 

Mycroft’s own existence was improbable, too, both in his person and in his status within the government. How much of his own life was necessitated by Watson's current life?

He slowly set his phone down without making the call he instinctively wanted to make. A world in which reality could shift at the demand of a single person—a world in which gods roamed the planet, had jobs and rented flats—that was a world of chaos. And yet, logic still reigned.

A still point couldn’t change itself, of course. But a still place to stand… that would let someone change the whole world. Dr. Watson was a place to stand, and if there was a lever, it was Sherlock, or possibly Dr. Watson’s love for Sherlock.

And Mycroft could not act against that love for his brother.

It was terrifying, but Mycroft would not act on his discovery. Dr. Watson would continue to walk upon the surface of the planet, as would Mycroft’s brother Sherlock.

His hand shook as he closed the window on his computer that showed his brother’s grave and the man who was a still point in a changing world. So, now he knew what his peers felt when they saw him. He had looked into the face of a man and known what he was and yet still not understood. And John Watson had looked at Sherlock like he was amazing and at Mycroft like he was nothing to fear.

And in the end, it turned out he was right.


	3. Sherlock: Love, Faith, and Choice

It took thirty years and Sherlock’s intent to retire to the countryside with John for Mycroft to approach him about the situation.

Sherlock had stopped avoiding his brother years ago, once he realized that he didn’t have to. As long as he was with John, his brother would mostly avoid the both of them.

“Do you know what he is capable of?”

There was no question who the ‘he’ in question was. Sherlock didn’t bother to suppress his smirk. “Of course. You told me yourself.”

“I don’t believe I did.”

It was more out of habit than genuine pleasure that made him note his brother’s glare. He described his findings clinically.

“In everything but words. It was quite the puzzle when I returned after my death. You avoided John. You avoided him more carefully than I ever avoided you. And yet, you made sure that he was aware of every important part of your life. You wanted him to know immediately and with certainty when you met a woman you could love and who could love you. You made sure he was aware of your engagement and was there for your wedding. You don’t like him and you want as little to do with him as possible, and yet you have introduced him to every single child and grandchild of yours.”

“If all he knew about me came from you, he would have thought me a lonely, unhappy man.”

“Likely. But why should you care what he thought? I could think of no reason except the one I didn’t know: his magic ability. And even that was a slim clue.”

“And what did you find?”

“Reality manipulation. A theoretical magic level somewhat more advanced than miracle working. It was first written about in a minor journal by a theoretical bio-magician, the results of funding from a small government grant that she didn’t recall applying to. She thought it was an amusing theoretical exercise but unlikely to ever occur in a viable human fetus.”

“Yes, the results were disappointing. I could hardly present her with the evidence.”

“Couldn’t you have?”

“A power like his is a difficult force to comprehend,” Mycroft changed the topic abruptly. John was not someone to fear, and Sherlock found it beyond fascinating that his older brother feared him. “To be unknown to him is even more dangerous than to be known.”

“And yet, you want nothing to do with him.” It truly was fascinating. How could someone as smart as Mycroft be so apprehensive?

“His ability is literally un-measurable and yet you think I should want to be near him? He has almost certainly changed who you were.”

“We are all changed by the people we meet and are close to.”

“Not like this.”

“You think not?”

“He changed who you were and he could not even make you happy. With all his ability, he didn’t even make you happy.”

“That says less about his desire for me to be happy, as about your complete lack of respect for any kind of free will.”

“That is hardly news. People make such awful choices for themselves.”

“Yes, they do. And yet, those are their choices to make. John understands that.”

Mycroft looked dubious, but Sherlock knew John. “If he is a god, like you seem to think, then he is one that loves me in the way I want to be loved: he has given me nothing but the opportunity to be great. My choices are my own.”

“Has he ever done it again?”

“Would you believe me if I said he hadn’t?”

“How could you possibly even know?”

“I asked myself the same question. So I observed. It is a skill of mine, after all. Not as all-perfect as your ability to know, perhaps, but it has served me well.”

“And what have you observed?”

“That he has not used his power again… to his knowledge.” Sherlock couldn’t help a small smirk.

_“His_ knowledge?”

“He sleeps. He dreams. I’ve experimented and had some extremely surreal experiences. He told me that his dreams are always of real events. I think he had realized that I had deduced it. It was a confession and a warning.”

“And of course you didn’t leave. Or tell me.” Mycroft scowled. “I thought of having him killed the first time I realized.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sherlock hissed. He knew such a threat was long past. If Mycroft were going to have John killed, he would have done so long since and without any forewarning. And yet, Sherlock couldn’t let that threat go by. He just couldn’t. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“No. As it turned out, I didn’t dare at all.”

“Good.”

The two brothers stared at each other and Sherlock wondered, not for the first time, how they could be so different. How could they look at the same thing, see and understand the same thing, and yet judge it so differently? How could Mycroft be afraid and not exhilarated?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Because Mycroft would go home to his family and his work and know better than to ever threaten John. And Sherlock would go home to John.

“Good,” he repeated. All was good.


End file.
